


A Letter to an Old Friend

by greygerbil



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-22
Updated: 2016-12-22
Packaged: 2018-09-11 02:50:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8950960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greygerbil/pseuds/greygerbil
Summary: Based on the panels we saw in the comic "Reflections", Genji struggles to find the right words in a letter to Angela after the Overwatch recall. Luckily, Zenyatta is there to take his mind off his problems.





	

_Dear Angela_

That was as far as Genji got before he got stuck.

There were several balled-up pieces of paper back in the guest room of the inn. They contained continuations such as:

_I know that I left abruptly and it was not my intention to seem like I didn’t appreciate what you did for me_

However, Overwatch, for the good they’d done him, had also chosen the moment to ask him rather cleverly, considering they had known about him for a while; offering a man over his last dying breaths that he could live after all was hardly giving him a choice. Angela might herself have meant well, but Genji was not sure whether he wanted to prostrate himself before an organisation such as that. 

_I did not want to leave you, Winston and the others behind in the chaos that followed soon after my departure. Had I known what would happen_

Would that have truly changed anything? Could he have stuck it out longer when he had already been so close to his breaking point? Genji couldn’t claim that for certain. Maybe knowing what he did now about Blackwatch would have only pushed him to leave faster.

_I’m not even sure whether you care to know what became of me._

That was perhaps the most honest thing he had managed to write so far. After the attention Angela had put into transforming the pitiful chunks of what had been left of him into a working unit, he had never showed her much kindness, too full of rage to not let some of his resentment target her. However, writing it down seemed pessimistic and like he didn’t recognise the fact that she was a person of great understanding and compassion.

Annoyed, Genji had taken his work outside, hoping to find a new perspective by exchanging the dull view onto the rickety bed and stone walls of the room against that of the snowy mountains. On his wish, Zenyatta and him had travelled to a small village in the Himalayas for Christmas and taken up residence in one of the two rooms the local inn had for the rare visitor, or the occasional drunk husband thrown out for the night.

Without Zenyatta by his side to smooth the residents’ suspicions – some of them had never seen an omnic before, let alone a cyborg like Genji –, he wasn’t even sure they would have been allowed to stay. After twenty minutes of conversation, however, Zenyatta had had the innkeeper complaining to him about his no-good son and his wife talking about her dead mother. There was also the young chamber maid asking, out of ear-shot of the other villagers, about a university in Kathmandu, where Zenyatta had told them they’d passed through on their journey to catch a guest lecture by a Buddhist monk.

People gravitated naturally towards him and Genji knew that Zenyatta was at his most content when he attempted to help. He had also helped Genji by honouring his request to spend Christmas here. Though Genji had left the Shambali monastery, he still associated a calm mind with the crunch of freshly fallen snow under his feet, air as clear and cold as crystal filling his lungs, and the enormity of the mountains helping him to put his problems, and himself, in perspective.

When Winston had given the signal to reactivate Overwatch, the fragile balance of his soul had been threatened once more, many questions he had been able to shelf for a while re-emerging. Though he’d only told Zenyatta what had happened, not commenting on how he felt about it, he had been sure that his new pensiveness had not gone unnoticed by his lover. He had gotten confirmation when Zenyatta had answered his request by telling him that he was sure that a change of pace would be good for Genji.

“Are you writing a novel?”

Genji looked up from the empty paper on his knees. Through the window of the room, one could climb onto the roof and from there onto the top of a hill against the side of which the inn was nestled. Genji had done so and now saw Zenyatta floating over the hill.

“I would be in trouble if that were my goal,” Genji said, voice tinged with frustration. “I can’t even write one letter.”

“I’ve noticed you’ve been working all morning. It doesn’t seem to come to you easily. Perhaps it would be best to take a break?”

“I’ve tried meditating,” Genji said, reaching behind himself to drop the paper and feather through the window, where they’d land on the desk that stood against the wall.

“Try again. I’ll be right by your side – I think I have an idea how to help.”

Stifling his curiosity for now, Genji assumed his meditation position on the roof, folding his legs, straightening his back, breathing deep into his stomach and lifting one hand in front of his face while resting the other on his thigh, using his raised fingers like the needles of a compass to force his mind onto the right path. Just as earlier, however, he found it difficult to resist the urge of using the quiet time with himself to compose the letter in his head instead of emptying his mind.

His attempts were interrupted by something hitting him on the side of the face.

Startled, Genji jumped to his feet and saw Zenyatta a few feet away on the hilltop. Instead of his orbs, there was now a circle of snowballs floating around his neck.

“Sometimes, I feel like retreating too far into one’s own head can be detrimental. Why don’t you try some physical exercise?” he asked and if Genji hadn’t known him so well, he might have missed that hint of a smile hiding in his voice.

“With snowballs?” he asked, doubtfully.

“Perhaps you’re right. It would be unfair of me to engage you in a snowball fight.” Zenyatta paused briefly, then tilted his head just a little. “Obviously, I would be much better than you.”

The bait was obvious, but Genji decided to take it. After all, Zenyatta was right; meditation didn’t seem to work for him right now and Genji knew himself well enough to realise that the failure to relax would only make him even angrier at himself, and consequently even worse at concentrating.

“Oh, would you be? Just because you throw those orbs around? I’ll have you know shuriken need a bit more precision than a ball the size of a child’s head,” Genji said, as he bowed downwards to scoop up a fistful of snow.

He should have known better than to expect Zenyatta to play fair and wait for him to call an official start to their game – of course another snowball hit him just as he was preparing his own ammunition. For a monk, Zenyatta could be a fox if he wanted to.

It was a short and brutal fight with no prisoners taken. Genji was fast enough to dodge Zenyatta’s shots, but though he jumped through the snow like a deer, he could seldomly get a good line of sight. Zenyatta was too slow to dodge, but that almost made no difference because he seemed to have a dozen snowballs collected around him at any time. Whenever Genji stopped briefly and made an attempt at getting a clear shot, he was immediately pelted with a volley. Usually when they practiced together, Zenyatta had to be more careful not to have his own orbs reflected back at him by Genji’s sword, but there was nothing stopping him here, since Genji had no blade.

No blade, but still the reflexes that made it so useful, he considered, as he ducked away under another snowball. Bunching up the the synthetic muscle fibres in his legs to allow them maximum working capacity, he launched himself at Zenyatta. The snowballs dropped all around and onto them as Zenyatta went down with him into the thick blanket of snow.

“Got you,” Genji said, smugly.

“I’m not sure this is playing by the rules. You aren’t a snowball,” Zenyatta noted, tapping against the arm that kept him pinned to the ground.

“But it’s fair that you can throw ten snowballs at once?” Genji asked, clinking their faceplates together in lieu of a kiss. “If this is not enough snow for you...”

Running his fingers through the snow on the ground, he took up some into his palm and pressed it into the gap between the plating and the piston at the side of Zenyatta’s metal ribcage. There were sensors hidden there to register the cold much more prominently than Zenyatta’s metal frame could. His master made a stuttering sound in the back of his throat.

“Very well! I concede your victory, Genji,” he said, letting his hands drop down into the snow beside him with a chuckle. Genji sat up, brushing snow off his own arms before he pulled Zenyatta up with him. Looking to where they had cavorted about, the undisturbed snow was now a mess of Genji’s sliding footprints. However, new snowflakes would soon cover up the traces of their game and leave the world uniformly white again, a monotonously peaceful place.

“Did you want to go somewhere else for Christmas?” Genji asked, suddenly, looking at Zenyatta in his arms. “Did you want to see celebrations?”

“What makes you think that?”

“It’s Christmas in a few days and I asked you to spend it far away from civilisation. You never told me if that is what you want.”

As he had remembered yesterday when they had arrived, Zenyatta was still a people person, someone who seemed to soak in contact with others. He’d also visibly enjoyed the sight of Tokyo, where there had last been, all lit up with Christmas decorations. Sometimes Genji realised he still fell into the trap of looking at Zenyatta as a teacher who would accommodate him to further Genji’s development, rather than a partner who simply stayed by his side because he wanted to. Perhaps he had not seen it before because his mind had been so preoccupied with his own problems before Zenyatta forced him out of his rut with the game.

There was a reason Zenyatta was so easy to view as a guide still.

“I’m spending Christmas with you. Why would I be unhappy?” Zenyatta asked, simply, taking Genji’s hand. “I enjoy the festivities, but if I were without you, or if you were unhappy beside me, I don’t think I could.”

“Next year, we’ll stay in the city,” Genji promised, pulling him closer.

“If that is what you want to do next year,” Zenyatta answered, his tone equanimous.

“I do like having you for myself,” Genji admitted. “I know I’m supposed to share on Christmas, but I’m selfish.”

“A forgivable sin in this case.” Zenyatta got up to his feet. “Although I’d prefer you have me for yourself inside, now that you’ve put snow on my sensors.”

Genji got up, too, and patted Zenyatta on the back.

“Alright, I’ll have you when we’re inside,” he said.

Zenyatta looked at him for a moment, silent, and then made a wordless sound of sudden understanding. For the first time in days, Genji laughed.

-

Genji laid he feather he had used to write on top of the letter. It did not say all he wanted it to say or all it should say, but it had to be enough for a first sign of life after his years of silence. He got up from the desk just as the bathroom door opened. Zenyatta had gone to clean himself up (a necessity since Genji had made good on his joke) and had also put on one of the hoodies Genji had bought for them before the trip. The thick fabric adorned with a fashionably faded print of the Numbani skyline hung off his gangly frame and looked mismatched with his frayed linen trousers. In its carelessness, it complimented the chipped paint, loose wires and scratches in his metal. 

“I think the heater is somewhat unstable,” Zenyatta said, by way of explanation, as he noticed Genji’s eyes on him. “You should put on something for the night as well, Genji.”

“I will,” Genji said, smiling. He thought, in that moment, Zenyatta was the prettiest omnic he’d ever seen.

“Did you finish your letter?”

“Yes.”

Glancing back at it, Genji nodded to himself. This time, it really was finished.

“That’s good. May I ask who will receive it?”

“Dr. Angela Ziegler.”

“Ah – the woman who rebuilt you?”

“I want her to know that if she needs me, she can still count on me. Not because she was with Overwatch, but because she was a friend to me and ignoring her would not be fair. I know she would not call me to an unworthy cause, either.”

Zenyatta floated towards him and put his hands on Genji’s shoulders.

“I’m happy to find you are well enough to reconnect, Genji,” he said, his voice bright.

“Me too.”

Genji briefly leaned their heads together before turning and pulling a simple black pullover and joggings pants from their travel bag to put them on for the night. He was not sure yet what it would feel like to meet Overwatch members again, but those were demons he could not run from anymore; they were too closely tied to some of the best things he had done in his life, and some of the most deserving people he had ever met.

“Who knows? I may soon know the feeling of what it is to be jealous of everyone who gets your time. I am sure that if you approach others once more, they will soon see how rewarding it is to be with you,” Zenyatta joked. “Perhaps _I_ will ask _you_ to go into the mountains with me for next year’s Christmas.”

“Have you _ever_ been jealous, Zenyatta? Would you even recognise the feeling?” Genji teased.

“Don’t paint me in too perfect strokes. I may disappoint,” his lover only said.

“I might have to flirt with someone just to see that.”

With a quiet laugh, Zenyatta lowered himself onto the bed. “I am going to shut down and recharge now, will you join me?”

“Yes,” Genji said, “give me a moment.”

The ink on the paper was now dry, so he folded the letter and slid the feather into an envelope. When he had been the Sparrow, in a different life, it had been his sign. Before he added the letter, he hesitated, pushing it open once more with his thumb to have a last look.

_Dear Angela,_

_I write to you to let you know that things have turned to the better for me. I have found someone who has shown me that my road was not supposed to end the night my brother killed me, and that there is much for me left to explore in this life. If you’ve ever felt I treated you unfairly, as I know I have, I apologise for it. While I do not look to return to Overwatch for now, and don’t know what your plans are, I do still think I should be at the disposal of those who have been my friends if they have need of me for any reason. Contact me via the old communicator if you want to._

_I hope that this letter finds you well and you will be happy this Christmas._

_Genji_

In the end, the only thing that felt right on paper was the truth, Genji considered, as he settled in behind Zenyatta’s quiet form in stand-by mode and laced their fingers together. That might mean highlighting how unhappy he had been at Overwatch and looking ungrateful. However, Angela’s hard work keeping him alive had not been for naught, he knew, and hoped that she would feel the same. This Christmas would finally be a good one.


End file.
